


Temptation Practice

by enthusiasmgirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Missing Scene, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 00:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20573732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: Aziraphale is technically supposed to be on apple-guarding duty. Crowley is supposed to be tempting Eve, but has decided to find an angel to practice his rusty skills on first. A long and beautiful relationship begins.





	Temptation Practice

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in the fandom, woot!
> 
> Thanks to [TheLadyZephyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyZephyr/pseuds/TheLadyZephyr) for her feedback on this and for helping me get better acquainted with the fandom.

"Tempt the humans," he'd been told before Hell sent him to Earth for the first time. "Lead them to their ruin and get them cast out so that Eden will rot."

Crowley intended to. He really did. And he would.

But first, he thought as he slithered through the thick, green underbrush trying to get the lay of the land and understand what might be particularly tempting about it, perhaps he would take an opportunity to hone his rusty skills on an altogether different mark. Could be fun. He always did enjoy ruffling angelic feathers, and since his fall he so rarely had the chance to do it.

"Angelllllll..." he hissed menacingly as he moved swiftly, searching out the other presence he knew must be there. "Where are you?"

It took longer than it should have to find him, which was surprising. Angels were generally very predictable. And yet he wasn't keeping watch where Crowley would have expected heaven to station him along the wall, nor was he along the outskirts of the eastern gate.

Where Crowley found him in the end was more surprising still. The strange creature had perched himself in an apple tree as though nobody told him he wasn't a bird! Not hovering above it ethereally, nor standing below it stoically. Just awkwardly wedged onto a too small branch, his bare feet dangling daintily below him, his wings bent and twisted into new shapes in order to make him properly fit. What in either heaven or hell was he doing up there? Especially because, Crowley noticed, according to the many signs posted around it, it was exactly where he was absolutely not supposed to be.

Crowley couldn't help himself. He coalesced into a shape to mirror the angel and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Oi, you!" he yell-whispered as best he could at him, not wanting to draw the attention of the garden's other occupants.

The angel turned to him, and it was all Crowley could do not to keel over and clutch at his knees, reeling. The bastard actually smiled at him. It could be called a grin even. And then he gave a silly little wave before startling himself off of his branch and plummeting face first into the ground below the tree. 

"Oh my," Crowley heard as he cautiously stepped towards him, not knowing what to think. "I think I'm... well, I'm bruised." He was still smiling, even at that. "That's different." His face shifted into a look of disgust. "I don't like it. Ow." 

He shook himself and miracled away any discomfort, then looked up from where he had pulled himself into a sitting position on the ground with expectation on his face, and it occurred to Crowley that he was speechless. Genuinely speechless. That had never happened before. "Oh, you're the demon," the angel said, realizing finally as he attempted to stand up and brushed dirt off his robe, picked bits of leaf from his hair. 

"Well of course I am," Crowley finally said. "Who else would I be, here?"

"Well," the angel said, "I am Aziraphale." As he said it, Crowley's eyes widened as it was accompanied by a rather goofy looking curtsy. 

Crowley looked around cautiously. Was this some sort of heavenly joke? A new tactic they were trying out, trying to keep Hell off-kilter? Surely, the angel wasn't being serious. What was he playing at? "I'm sorry, but you did hear the part where I said that yes I was the demon a moment ago?" Crowley asked, confused.

At that, Aziraphale looked suddenly chastened, and cleared his throat in preparation before firmly saying "Back you foul fiend!" in a deep, firm voice. He even tried to look stern as he said it. But it was insincere, like he was reading from a script that even he thought was terrible. He then retrieved a sword laying on the ground nearby and brandished it in an attempt to look intimidating. It was ornate and flaming. Had it been there before? How had Crowley missed that?

"Was that on the ground?" Crowley asked, slightly aghast. "Just laying about, for anyone to come across?"

The angel's body language deflated slightly. "Well... yes, but... I was..." he sputtered in response, defensive. "It isn't like I let it out of my line of sight. I was right there if needed."

"Where? Up in the apparently forbidden tree?" Crowley gestured to it. "Why?"

"Well, I was up on the wall where I was supposed to be," the angel explained, "and then it occurred to me that perhaps it would be more effective if instead of waiting for something to happen, I was a bit more... proactive?"

"Proactive," Crowley said.

"Yes," came the response, and a smug look of accomplishment for no reason that made sense. "Proactive," he repeated, enunciating every syllable. 

"A proactive angel. That's new," Crowley said, astonished.

"Is it? Well, I suppose this all is, isn't it?" the angel asked in a small voice. "Kind of the point, really. I'm still feeling this whole thing out. It's not like I've done this before."

"Couldn't tell," Crowley said. That got a smile back. This one was gullible. Some temptation practice he'd be. "Bit of a tip though? I'm the enemy. You're supposed to hate me, not wave hello. We shouldn't even really be talking right now."

"Oh," and this made the angel look like Crowley had just kicked his puppy. For some reason Crowley felt bad about it, which should have been more alarming than it was. "Hate though?" Aziraphale asked him. "Is that what you think?"

"Yep. Angel. Demon. Eternal enemies? What part of this aren't you getting?" Crowley reiterated, gesturing between them in frustration.

"Enemies, certainly, yes," Aziraphale agreed, "and I will thwart whatever it is that you are planning, of course. But angels are made of love. Well, those that aren't fallen at least. We're not capable of hate. Only forgiveness."

Forgiveness. Crowley contemplated that for a moment. It might have been the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, even if it was also the nicest. And Angels can't hate? They're made of love? If this one believed that, Gabriel and the others would eat him for breakfast. 

"You see," Aziraphale continued, "I know that you have your role in the Great Plan, just as I have mine. So I see no reason we shouldn't be civil about it. Especially because isn't this supposed to be the start of... well, of civilization? Seems strange not to get into the spirit of the thing in that case." 

He stepped forward as he said that, and an apple fell to the ground, almost as if in slow motion. Crowley's mouth dropped open as he realized that it had been tucked discretely in the angel's robes, realizing what it implied. "Oh," he said. "That is..." He wasn't sure what to say. But he knew he had to say something. Didn't this strange angel know what he'd been doing and what it could mean? It occurred to Crowley that he probably shouldn't care this much about it, should probably be delighted. But he wasn't. "Were you going to eat that?" he finally asked, horrified.

And when Crowley articulated it out loud, Aziraphale looked just as horrified in response. "No! Who? Me? Of course not. I would never..." he said, tripping over his words. 

"Although..." 

And if Crowley hadn't realized how overinvested he was in Aziraphale before, that _although_ did it for him. "... I don't recall being given any instructions that said that an angel couldn't eat from the tree," Aziraphale continued. "The humans, no. Of course not. But surely I wouldn't have been given this lovely corporeal form with all of its... appetites... if I wasn't expected to at least wonder about it. Just a little bit? But no, I would never have... I couldn't have..."

Crowley realized that Aziraphale might just keep going like that if he didn't stop him, so he waved his hands in a wrap up motion at him and reassured him "No, of course not. I know you wouldn't have. You're an angel, after all."

"Right," Aziraphale agreed, nodding his head, and giggling slightly. "Exactly." 

Crowley realized in that moment that he was worried for this naive and newly corporeal angel for some reason. When he then briefly realized what that reason might be, he immediately put it out of mind, because it meant remembering that he, too, had once been curious. Had once had faith in the Great Plan. And look where it had gotten him. Best not to dwell on it. 

"Aziraphale?" he said, an invitation in his voice. Temptation practice was still the goal in the end. 

"Yes?" Aziraphale asked, interested.

"I think I might have seen a nice bush with some berries back out towards the western gate," Crowley lied. "Might give you a chance to break this form in without all the hassle, yeah? I can show you if you'd like. We can both have a bit of a nibble before resuming, well... you know. The Great Plan and all."

Aziraphale looked torn at the offer. "I'm keeping a close watch on you," he said, brandishing the sword again but in the least threatening way possible. 

"As you should," Crowley agreed. And off they went. And when they got to the bushes, far from where Adam and Eve were frolicking on the eastern side of the garden, it wasn't hard to wait until the angel was searching with his back turned to revert back to his snake form and slither again, at a speed the angel wouldn't be able to match once he realized, towards their reason for being there in the first place.

Still though... a proactive angel. With appetites, apparently. Maybe this new world would be more interesting than he'd thought.


End file.
